While it houses a lot of cooky ideas that never see the light of day, the "top-secret" innovation hub birthed Google Glass and Google's driverless cars. So as outlandish as some of the following ideas may sound, they're all in the works or they suddenly aren't, per Businessweek's new cover story — yes, even the balloons — and, hey, maybe they'll come true, too.
After gamely donning Google's face computer on Capitol Hill this morning, Bachmann has already suffered the same aesthetic fate as those so-called "Glassholes" before her: Even a politician who's somewhat famous for her stare can't make the glasses of the future look any less weird.
The first two months of Google Glass testimonials resulted in lame sports videos and bad photos taken with the wearable machine, but a new first-person video that surfaced last night finally gives the face computer-less masses a look at what you actually see from behind the glass.
Google Glass has itself a marketing problem: the glasses might be as cool as some Glassheads say, but the rest of us non-early adopters are stuck with boring first-person videos and banal pictures of the world's foremost face computer, without any of the cool face-computer functionality.
So far Google Glass is illegal exactly nowhere, despite an over-the-top front-page story in today's New York Times that suggests Google is already facing a bunch of legal pushback over its face computer of the future. What will Google do about all this?
Of all the various etiquette guides to emerge with prescriptions for the inaugural class of Glassholes, there has been one recurring piece of advice that probably won't please Google: The most polite thing a Google Glass owner can do is not wear Google Glass at all.
Google Glass, that doomed-at-early-adoption device about which we learned so much this week, will not become a tough seell to the masses because of a bunch of white male dorks trying out the face computer of the future. It's the design itself — in form, and the function inspired by something that, well, makes everyone who puts on a pair look so frickin' weird.
Despite the many fears of cyber-stalking to arise from the soft launch of its digital seeing eye, Google has made it pretty difficult to take photos and videos of unwitting people with Google Glass — except for one developer who's already built a workaround privacy nightmare.
Beyond aesthetics, professional Glass reviewers and amateur experimenters alike have reported some flaws — bad battery life, a bad fit, vulnerability to hackers, and beyond — that might make future buyers reconsider the $1,500 investment when the glasses of the future are available to the masses.
The most popular use of Google Glass so far is also the creepiest: Newly minted owners of the awkward eyeglasses of the future sure are taking and posting a lot of self-portraits, and Google sure must love the publicity, what with its plan to make wearing a computer on your face totally normal.
Did you expect to see someone wearing Google Glass in a box? Did you expect to see someone wearing Google Glass with a fox? Did you expect to see someone wearing Google Glass with a mouse? How about a mouse? You probably didn't expect to see them in the shower, that's for sure.
With all the lucky first Google Glass owners now starting to receive their wearable face computers in the mail, we are already seeing a rise in the "glasshole"—an endearing term used to describe people who do not use the gadgets in socially acceptable ways.
The first few hundred Google Glass headsets are now in the hands of the luck "Explorers" who coughed up $1,500 for the device. Obviously, the proud new owners meticulously documented the unboxing process.
Bust out the stars and stripes, crack open a Pabst and get patriotic because Google Glass, the augmented reality nerd accessory of the future, will be reportedly made in America — by Foxconn.
In a shameless attempt to win skeptics over, Google has included the betterment of penguins, firemen, and veterans among the first uses for Google Glass.
Google's attempts to ease the world into the freakishness that is Google Glass has done just the opposite, with a lot of people very turned off before the computer glasses go on sale to the public.
Google stole the stage at SXSW on Tuesday when it spent an entire session getting developers excited about Glass, its very 21st-century venture into wearable computing. Honestly, the presentation sounds pretty exciting.
Let's put it out there: people wearing Google Glasses look weird. We're not used to seeing people with working computers for eyes. One Seattle bar took things a step further, though, by threatening to beat up anyone wearing the new eyewear. Google doesn't get what all the fuss is about.
The Google founder Sergey Brin's remarks about how his smartphone makes him feel emasculated was either an alienating off-color remark or a suggestion that he is turning into a robot.
On Wednesday morning an eBay auction immediately began raising eyebrows for how much bidders were driving up its price — more than ten times the price tag Google sources confirmed last week — before it vanished from the site a few hours later.
Christmas has come early for early adopters today. Google has finally given us a release date and price point for their nerdy (and potentially sort of stylish) augmented reality glasses.
Props to Google for working with the hip glasses maker Warby Parker in an attempt to make its wearable A.I. goggles more stylish, but it will take a lot of social acceptance of robot aesthetics before a face-computer looks cool.
For those not inclined to watch Google's new demo video, here are all the the adventures you can take with this particular gadget of the future.
So a guy spotted Google's founder wearing Google's Project Glass glasses, and the photo went viral. But the not-so-incognito ride still begs the question: What was he doing underground in robot glasses that only work with Internet? Here are some conspiracy theories, and answers.
Google Glass has a glasses-of-the-future competitor called the Vuzix smart glasses M100, which look about as cyborg-ish as Google's wearable computer invention, giving us no hope for a non-robotic version of these things.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the world his vision of the Google-ified future at the company's Zeitgeist sales conference. Turns out it involves a lot of creepy products we already know about and others we aren't ready to welcome into our lives.
The two tech reviewers who got to try Google Glass said they had "potential," which is one of those euphemistic words teachers use to describe C students, as to not hurt their parents' feelings.
Google finally divulged details of its much-rumored project to design eye-wear that augments reality with a video featuring their hopes for "project glass," and the results are as impressive as you'd expect, but also a little disconcertingly "man-meets-machine."
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